switching to linux for a beginner.

[Ihavesmallpp]

i want to install linux on a second drive for now and i wanna test it out because i've seen it running games better than windows. question 1 does it run marvel rival better. question 2 what linux distro should i go for first i love the ui of ubuntu. i've seen people suggest linux mint for first time linux users that ui looks bad. so i would rather go for something simple like ubuntu. and it has to have a nice ui with stable with software. question 3 can you guys give me a template of terminal commands to see what they look like. question 4 gpu nvidia drivers good with linux or are they bad? question 5. just some tips before jumping straight in. just some general tips for like proton and stuff. linux commands etc.

[HoldSquat]

16 minutes ago, Ihavesmallpp said:

i want to install linux on a second drive for now and i wanna test it out because i've seen it running games better than windows. question 1 does it run marvel rival better. question 2 what linux distro should i go for first i love the ui of ubuntu. i've seen people suggest linux mint for first time linux users that ui looks bad. so i would rather go for something simple like ubuntu. and it has to have a nice ui with stable with software. question 3 can you guys give me a template of terminal commands to see what they look like. question 4 gpu nvidia drivers good with linux or are they bad? question 5. just some tips before jumping straight in. just some general tips for like proton and stuff. linux commands etc.

So theirs a lot to respond to here but Ill try to hit each thing a little bit.

 

1] As for rivals, I think It'll run about the same. Linux usually matches Windows in performance. Only a couple of times have I gotten worse performance. But when it comes to gaming through Steam it's pretty good so long as the anticheat isnt messing with anything. Also look into Lutris for some games that aren't on Steam, I've used it for Overwatch and Diablo IV with good success.

 

2] When it comes to testing distos, a great tool is Ventoy. If you have a USB stick laying around it's great because you can download multiple ISOs into one USB stick and install/test different distros easily. I keep one around with a couple of distros encase I ever need to reinstall a distro.

 

That said, I really like Linux Mint for beginners or Ubuntu, Mint is closer to what Windows feels like so the gap to jump over isn't as bad. Ubuntu really isn't bad either though for beginners, just ummm don't go to r/unixporn. You might develop an itch to rice your system, I have and I haven't been able to stop for years.

 

3] As far as a template of terminal commands, I don't have one right now but LearnLinuxTV on youtube is great beginners/advance resource for learning terminal and other things on Linux. His stuff really helps and also is a great reference for even experienced users.

 

4] Nvidia GPUs are something else, for me I've been AMD for awhile and not had much issue. A friend of mine has used Nvidia with no issues. Ubuntu and Linux Mint are pretty good as far as I know with Nvidia. Now PopOS and Nobaru also have good support for Nvidia as well.

 

5] Oh there is a lot to cover here but GloriousEggroll makes a great offshoot of Proton. Generally I just used Steams compatibility mode though. All you have to do is when you first start steam on linux is go to Steam > Settings > Compatibility > Enable Steam Play for all other titles

 

Also download mangohud to get information like FPS in game, youll have to enable it as a launch option per game though. Also get used to using protondb to find out more information about games that work/dont work.

 

I hope this helps, It's a lot to digest and good luck with Linux!

 

 

[RollyShed]

6 hours ago, Ihavesmallpp said:

i've seen people suggest linux mint for first time linux users that ui looks bad. so i would rather go for something simple like ubuntu.

What do you mean by "that ui looks bad"?

I have here someone who used Windows for years then had MS delete her entire Windows 10 system and revert it to Win7 with no data.

So Windows one day, Linux the next morning when I swapped disk cables over, for her, to a Linux Mint disk which had everything backed up on it. She simply sat down at the computer and carried on as if nothing had happened, emails, web browsing, business accounts (LibreOffice), learning the violin (a number of apps to help there). Couldn't be easier.

 

And each month? Nothing is broken by MS.

[Ihavesmallpp]

11 hours ago, HoldSquat said:

So theirs a lot to respond to here but Ill try to hit each thing a little bit.

 

1] As for rivals, I think It'll run about the same. Linux usually matches Windows in performance. Only a couple of times have I gotten worse performance. But when it comes to gaming through Steam it's pretty good so long as the anticheat isnt messing with anything. Also look into Lutris for some games that aren't on Steam, I've used it for Overwatch and Diablo IV with good success.

 

2] When it comes to testing distos, a great tool is Ventoy. If you have a USB stick laying around it's great because you can download multiple ISOs into one USB stick and install/test different distros easily. I keep one around with a couple of distros encase I ever need to reinstall a distro.

 

That said, I really like Linux Mint for beginners or Ubuntu, Mint is closer to what Windows feels like so the gap to jump over isn't as bad. Ubuntu really isn't bad either though for beginners, just ummm don't go to r/unixporn. You might develop an itch to rice your system, I have and I haven't been able to stop for years.

 

3] As far as a template of terminal commands, I don't have one right now but LearnLinuxTV on youtube is great beginners/advance resource for learning terminal and other things on Linux. His stuff really helps and also is a great reference for even experienced users.

 

4] Nvidia GPUs are something else, for me I've been AMD for awhile and not had much issue. A friend of mine has used Nvidia with no issues. Ubuntu and Linux Mint are pretty good as far as I know with Nvidia. Now PopOS and Nobaru also have good support for Nvidia as well.

 

5] Oh there is a lot to cover here but GloriousEggroll makes a great offshoot of Proton. Generally I just used Steams compatibility mode though. All you have to do is when you first start steam on linux is go to Steam > Settings > Compatibility > Enable Steam Play for all other titles

 

Also download mangohud to get information like FPS in game, youll have to enable it as a launch option per game though. Also get used to using protondb to find out more information about games that work/dont work.

 

I hope this helps, It's a lot to digest and good luck with Linux!

 

 

thank you found their channel gonna watch one of they're videos later today probably gonna use ubuntu.

[Ihavesmallpp]

5 hours ago, RollyShed said:

What do you mean by "that ui looks bad"?

I have here someone who used Windows for years then had MS delete her entire Windows 10 system and revert it to Win7 with no data.

So Windows one day, Linux the next morning when I swapped disk cables over, for her, to a Linux Mint disk which had everything backed up on it. She simply sat down at the computer and carried on as if nothing had happened, emails, web browsing, business accounts (LibreOffice), learning the violin (a number of apps to help there). Couldn't be easier.

 

And each month? Nothing is broken by MS.

sorry i don't like the ui. i don't know what I'm supposed to say.

[White_Helix]

I daily Linux now for about two years, some thoughts on this:

 

I would not use Ubuntu, for two reasons. The first is Canonical as company, the second is the age of the packages. Yes its stable, but for desktop and gaming use its too outdated imho. Especially if you have somewhat current hardware. So for me, definitely ditch Ubuntu. My goto recommendation distribution wise would be the latest Fedora Workstation. Stable but current packages, comes in Gnome or KDE (and even more Spins, in your case you probably want the stock Gnome version. Backed by Redhat, which is a huge benefit in maintenance for me. 

 

I would absolutely skip over Nobara or something like that, the last thing you want is a single person backed project. I just mention this as Nobara comes often as recommendation for gaming. Just stick with Fedora and youre completely fine.

 

Nvidia is a kind of complicated story on Linux. The Nvidia drivers are not really good in terms of software quality, however on Desktop use only, that probably does not show that much. If youre on a Laptop or behold even Optimus system like I am, there will be a lot of pain. But thats almost exclusive afaik to Optimus usage. So if you have an Optimus laptop, dont get your hopes up too much for a smooth experience as soon as the GPU is involved. 

 

For general usage, at least on Fedora there is not really much stuff you would need to do apart from installation. The setup should detect your Nvidia GPU automatically. For Proton stuff I exclusively used Steam in the past, worked just fine for me. Depending on what Distribution you go, you maybe need to enable the use of unfree repositories to install stuff like missing Codes, but thats also highly distribution dependant. 

[RollyShed]

7 hours ago, Ihavesmallpp said:

sorry i don't like the ui. i don't know what I'm supposed to say.

I presume by that you definitely don't like the Windows UI.

What do you like about the Ubuntu UI? 

Is it the task bar down the side rather than at the bottom? If so move the Mint one there.

A red looking screen? OK, load a red looking one. Put it in the Pictures folder and go to System Settings, Appearance, Backgrounds and use it.

[Ihavesmallpp]

7 hours ago, White_Helix said:

I daily Linux now for about two years, some thoughts on this:

 

I would not use Ubuntu, for two reasons. The first is Canonical as company, the second is the age of the packages. Yes its stable, but for desktop and gaming use its too outdated imho. Especially if you have somewhat current hardware. So for me, definitely ditch Ubuntu. My goto recommendation distribution wise would be the latest Fedora Workstation. Stable but current packages, comes in Gnome or KDE (and even more Spins, in your case you probably want the stock Gnome version. Backed by Redhat, which is a huge benefit in maintenance for me. 

 

I would absolutely skip over Nobara or something like that, the last thing you want is a single person backed project. I just mention this as Nobara comes often as recommendation for gaming. Just stick with Fedora and youre completely fine.

 

Nvidia is a kind of complicated story on Linux. The Nvidia drivers are not really good in terms of software quality, however on Desktop use only, that probably does not show that much. If youre on a Laptop or behold even Optimus system like I am, there will be a lot of pain. But thats almost exclusive afaik to Optimus usage. So if you have an Optimus laptop, dont get your hopes up too much for a smooth experience as soon as the GPU is involved. 

 

For general usage, at least on Fedora there is not really much stuff you would need to do apart from installation. The setup should detect your Nvidia GPU automatically. For Proton stuff I exclusively used Steam in the past, worked just fine for me. Depending on what Distribution you go, you maybe need to enable the use of unfree repositories to install stuff like missing Codes, but thats also highly distribution dependant. 

when i get my second ssd to dual boot i will use fedora with gnome desktop looks very good and clean and sounds pretty easy. 

[Ihavesmallpp]

3 hours ago, RollyShed said:

I presume by that you definitely don't like the Windows UI.

What do you like about the Ubuntu UI? 

Is it the task bar down the side rather than at the bottom? If so move the Mint one there.

A red looking screen? OK, load a red looking one. Put it in the Pictures folder and go to System Settings, Appearance, Backgrounds and use it.

i just don't like the ui i like windows better than linux mint. i don't care about it being on the side i just like the short cuts and the menu's more on ubuntu.

[Biohazard777]

On 3/10/2025 at 1:33 AM, Ihavesmallpp said:

i love the ui of ubuntu

On 3/10/2025 at 1:33 AM, Ihavesmallpp said:

i've seen people suggest linux mint for first time linux users that ui looks bad.

You mean you like GNOME. the default desktop enviorement (DE) of Ubuntu.
And you dislike Cinnamon DE, default DE of Linux Mint.
Don't mix up distributions with desktop enviorements, you can have the same distro with different desktop enviorements:
Mint:

Spoiler

Manjaro:

Spoiler

same goes for Ubuntu, etc.

Also, a single DE can have many different themes and icon packs... compltely transforming the look of it.
You can get XFCE to not look like something out of the 90s but actually "cool" looking by using:
sweet theme + candy icons + plank dock

For a more in-depth exaplanation you are welcome to look it up on google or YT, this video seems ok:

 

[spacepickle]

I'm a huge fan of Lubuntu, it's super snappy on literally any computer from the last decade (heck maybe even two decades) and it's honestly amazing. You can try that one in guest mode if you just boot from a USB and you've just got a hunger to boot into something other than Windows.  That said it's probably not the best experience for gaming (I hear it's missing some graphics compiler or something so you might get screen tearing), maybe look into Bazzite or wait for SteamOS.

[RollyShed]

2 hours ago, Ihavesmallpp said:

i just don't like the ui i like windows better than linux mint. 

i just like the short cuts and the menu's more on ubuntu.

There are 25 pages of desktops here and these are just the ones people have set up this year -

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=437045&hilit=desktop+2025

 

As for shortcuts, what is the difference between those on a Mint task bar / panel and those on a Windows panel?

There is no difference.

As for menus, Win XP, 7, 8, 8.1, 10, 11?

Which one as they all kept changing with each version.

[Ihavesmallpp]

1 hour ago, Biohazard777 said:

You mean you like GNOME. the default desktop enviorement (DE) of Ubuntu.
And you dislike Cinnamon DE, default DE of Linux Mint.
Don't mix up distributions with desktop enviorements, you can have the same distro with different desktop enviorements:
Mint:

  Reveal hidden contents

Manjaro:

  Reveal hidden contents

same goes for Ubuntu, etc.

Also, a single DE can have many different themes and icon packs... compltely transforming the look of it.
You can get XFCE to not look like something out of the 90s but actually "cool" looking by using:
sweet theme + candy icons + plank dock

For a more in-depth exaplanation you are welcome to look it up on google or YT, this video seems ok:

 

oh i knew what desktop environments were but never knew that ubuntu did not make there own desktop ui. thanks for the heads up.

[Ihavesmallpp]

1 hour ago, spacepickle said:

I'm a huge fan of Lubuntu, it's super snappy on literally any computer from the last decade (heck maybe even two decades) and it's honestly amazing. You can try that one in guest mode if you just boot from a USB and you've just got a hunger to boot into something other than Windows.  That said it's probably not the best experience for gaming (I hear it's missing some graphics compiler or something so you might get screen tearing), maybe look into Bazzite or wait for SteamOS.

bazzite does not support nvidia gpus. i might wait for steam os i still do not know.

[emothxughts]

On the topic of Marvel Rivals, if you finally managed the jump to Linux, you will have to input the following commands on Steam launch commands

Spoiler

SteamDeck=1 LD_PRELOAD="" gamemoderun mangohud %command%

as well as switch to Proton Experimental for this specific game, or you'll see a blank black screen where the cinematics should be. (Actual gameplay is unaffected, game is perfectly playable otherwise.)

[White_Helix]

6 hours ago, Ihavesmallpp said:

i might wait for steam os i still do not know.

If you want to go for Arch, EndeavourOS is my go to recommendation. Keep as far away from Manjaro as you can, thats nothing but a dumpster fire. Besides that, I dont really see a benefit from an Valve branded Arch OS in comparison to others, as we are talking about not hardware specific adjustments. Probably a frew pre-installed packages and changed default settings, but nothing that would be really substential for me and put them over a really well established distribution.

[Ihavesmallpp]

9 hours ago, White_Helix said:

If you want to go for Arch, EndeavourOS is my go to recommendation. Keep as far away from Manjaro as you can, thats nothing but a dumpster fire. Besides that, I dont really see a benefit from an Valve branded Arch OS in comparison to others, as we are talking about not hardware specific adjustments. Probably a frew pre-installed packages and changed default settings, but nothing that would be really substential for me and put them over a really well established distribution.

i've heard people said arch is really hard whats so hard about it.

[Ihavesmallpp]

14 hours ago, emothxughts said:

On the topic of Marvel Rivals, if you finally managed the jump to Linux, you will have to input the following commands on Steam launch commands

  Reveal hidden contents

SteamDeck=1 LD_PRELOAD="" gamemoderun mangohud %command%

as well as switch to Proton Experimental for this specific game, or you'll see a blank black screen where the cinematics should be. (Actual gameplay is unaffected, game is perfectly playable otherwise.)

marvel rival kinda supports linux in one of their patch notes they fixed bazzite using low quality textures. they proably will fix it or steam will add those bugfixes over to proton non beta/

[xAcid9]

On 3/12/2025 at 2:34 AM, Ihavesmallpp said:

i've heard people said arch is really hard whats so hard about it.

Yup. It's hard to not tell the world that you're using Arch. 

 

I'm on "Arch" btw. 

[Ha-Satan]

On 3/10/2025 at 9:54 PM, Ihavesmallpp said:

oh i knew what desktop environments were but never knew that ubuntu did not make there own desktop ui. thanks for the heads up.

At one point, Ubuntu did have their own in-house desktop environment called Unity, but a while back they dropped it and just started shipping Gnome as the default desktop environment in Ubuntu.

[maplepants]

You've gotten some good advice so far. One thing I'd like to add, is to get yourself a good backup strategy.

 

You're going to be playing games and unless you stick rigidly to Steam Deck verified games and never attempt to fix bugs, you'll probably end up following some guides, forum posts, whatever telling you to do something to your computer. Mistakes here can happen, and they can be hard to recover from if you're new to Linux.

 

So your best bet is to just buy yourself a hard drive and install something dead simple like Déjà Dup. This way you can play around with your system and in the event that something goes wrong, you won't have much data loss.

[Ihavesmallpp]

On 3/13/2025 at 11:15 AM, maplepants said:

You've gotten some good advice so far. One thing I'd like to add, is to get yourself a good backup strategy.

 

You're going to be playing games and unless you stick rigidly to Steam Deck verified games and never attempt to fix bugs, you'll probably end up following some guides, forum posts, whatever telling you to do something to your computer. Mistakes here can happen, and they can be hard to recover from if you're new to Linux.

 

So your best bet is to just buy yourself a hard drive and install something dead simple like Déjà Dup. This way you can play around with your system and in the event that something goes wrong, you won't have much data loss.

oh i am willing to trouble shoot bugs i have way too much time. i think i will get a nvme ssd because i've seen people tried to load marvel rivals it took them over a 5 minutes to load the map and get into the game so not gonna buy a hdd.

[Ihavesmallpp]

On 3/13/2025 at 9:39 AM, Ha-Satan said:

At one point, Ubuntu did have their own in-house desktop environment called Unity, but a while back they dropped it and just started shipping Gnome as the default desktop environment in Ubuntu.

oh must have seen a old video about ubuntu and them mentioning the a old desktop de.

[Ihavesmallpp]

On 3/13/2025 at 9:18 AM, xAcid9 said:

Yup. It's hard to not tell the world that you're using Arch. 

 

I'm on "Arch" btw. 

degenerate.

[VirtualDelinquent]

I've been using Linux for a while, and I started using Pop OS about a year ago as my main operating system. I don’t play Marvel Rivals, but I've seen somewhat better performance for games compared to Windows 11 on the same machine. It’s worth checking ProtonDB to see how games run on different equipment, people will post commands to enter into Steam which might help with overall performance or getting the game to launch.

I tried Linux Mint and a few other distributions like EndeavourOS, but they weren't for me. Since you like the user interface of Ubuntu and need Nvidia drivers, I think you would like Pop OS. It has two different download options, one for AMD and Intel and one for Nvidia, and their drivers will automatically install when Pop is installed onto a drive. Nvidia graphics on Linux has been decent in my experience, although, my old GTX 1070 has given me a few problems sometimes. I’ve come to expect that from an old piece of hardware, but I’m all out of 40-series cards to know if they run better on Linux.